DRY THE RIVER
The post-punk reborn folkies featured in NME only a couple of weeks ago captured my attention to a point where I was dying to find out more…so that’s exactly what I did! Do read on…
It’s funny how as if by coincidence, any situation or step you take in life can lead to something life changing…something I can only describe as a kind of butterfly effect, which is how Dry The River was incarnated. It would surprise you that the quintet from the sordid surroundings of Stratford, East London all united together by chance, each individually crashing a mutual friends wedding as little as a year and a half ago to become the close collaboration that they are today. Funny that!Following influential faces by the likes of Arcade fire, Bon Iver and the wise word wizard Leonard Cohen, the former punk/rock practitioners are quickly climbing up the rungs of the long music industry ladder on to the mainstream scene carrying a folkesque vibe about them. Their unique sound consists of this collaboration of strings, electrics, angelic vocals and cradling beats that escalate into stomping choruses, reaching inside you with extreme intimacy and energy.
The guys have herds of fans whose hearts have been won over with their pastoral melodies and storytelling qualities, which are infused with a storm of emotion to leave you almost tongue-tied by the intensity of their moving live performances. It’s no wonder when they come out with gems such as ‘Bible Belt’ it leaves the audience completely spellbound.
Even though they may have once satisfied their musical hunger with the head banging beats of At The Drive In and Refused, playing in local punk/rock bands previously, their current project is less likely to give leave you with a headache.
Dry The River have supported the likes of Plan B, Johnny Flynn and Magic numbers. Now we’re only just in to 2011, DTR have been cracking on. Their single ‘New Ceremony’ is to be released on Monday March 7th and the boys are currently State side recording exciting material for their debut album predicted to be released later this year.
I caught up with front man Peter Liddle for a chinwag, who kindly took some time out for me to talk about how things are going!
We met at a wedding that we'd all independently crashed, and after an impromptu weekend in the holiday home of the bride's father we became the best of friends. It's a cool story, they should make it into a film!
I heard that you guys all come from punk/rock backgrounds in the past? So what influenced you all to come together and create the fresh, beautiful folky/story like sound you preach?
That's true yeah, in our fledgling years as musicians we listened to and played in a lot of post punk and hardcore kinda bands. At that point I wasn't really a songwriter, I just wrote lyrics and sang in other people's bands. Then I had a bit of a musical hiatus for a while and almost unconsciously started to revisit a lot of records my mother used to listen to: Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Suzanne Vega, Dylan, and write these bare bones folk songs. That's why initially the early Dry the River demos are closer to that kind of sound. Since then we've brought those punk and rock influences back in, and I guess the result is kind of folk songs played by a rock band.
If any in particular, who would you say was an influence for you that you looked up to when creating your unique sound? Any role models?
I think Arcade Fire are a band who taught me that you can begin with a restrained, intimate little song and build it up into something broader and more intense. I used to be quite afraid of that approach but if you're attentive you can do that without losing the essence of the song.
Am I right in saying that when you were at Uni in Bristol, you shut yourself away and wrote lots of songs? Is that how the band then later came to surface?
To a degree, yeah (is that a pun?). Bristol was the first time I began to trust myself as a songwriter a little more, although Dry the River actually came later - there were a number of haphazard projects in that time that were important for me formatively but weren't ultimately productive for whatever reason.
Your songwriting has a storytelling quality that, I know for me in particular listens to and can relate to what you sing out loud. Are many of the songs to do with past personal experiences? I noticed there were a few religious references in some of the songs too.
The songs aren't heart-on-sleeve, verbatim accounts of my experiences. I think if they were they'd probably be fairly unexciting, aside from anything else. I know artists who do use their daily lives as the crux of their creative output and I admire it, but I tend to struggle with that kind of approach. That's not to say the songs and lyrics are fictitious - at the core they're informed by own experiences and emotional responses, but I prefer to explore that in a more ambiguous way, sometimes through narrative. I hope that leaves more room for the listener to interpret and relate. As for the religious imagery, I learnt to sing in the church and I find the language to be a very poignant way to describe the various tribulations we all face.
What have you guys got planned this year? Are you recording the debut album later this year? Is there anywhere that people can grab hold of your music currently?
We have a single, New Ceremony, out on March 7th through Transgressive Records. I'm fairly certain there'll be an album before the end of the year - right now we're working on the material and finalising the practical details. Stay tuned!
What is your favourite song to play live?
It changes every day! We go through periods where certain songs inexplicably start to become more or less consistent and they change in our perceptions accordingly. I guess Family Tree and Bible Belt often seem to get a good response and that makes them more rewarding to play.
You played a gig at the Borderline in London tonight (Feb 5th) for HMVs next big thing...how was it? Are there any gigs coming up soon that people can all pop along to?
The Borderline show was a lot of fun, people seemed to know the songs and were really attentive. We have some shows coming up with Two Door Cinema Club before we head to Austin TX for SXSW. The best thing is to check www.facebook.com/drytheriver - there's a "Shows" tab at the top which has a list of the upcoming dates.
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